This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

How to wet your plants: Using human urine as fertilizer

Toronto master gardener Lynne Sullivan has a secret she’s reluctant to share with her neighbours.

She’s one of a growing number of gardeners and environmentalists recycling their own urine as fertilizer for plants.

“It’s as old as the hills,” says Sullivan. “There are quite a few gardeners who do it. They probably don’t advertise the fact.”

Sullivan added her own urine to her compost last year, which helps it break down a more quickly and enriches it with nitrogen. She spreads the mix on her vegetable and flower beds.

“It’s a very concentrated form of high-nitrogen fertilizer that can be used in the garden. It’s kind of a shame we wash it out into the sewers, which goes out into the lakes and rivers.”

Article Continued Below

Environmentalists from rural Oregon to urban Chicago as well as Finland and Sweden are also collecting their urine for composting. It’s part of the permaculture movement, which tries to recreate natural ecological systems to restore the balance between man and nature.

Nova Scotia actor Ellen Page, starring alongside Leonardo di Caprio in the movie Inception, has been a proponent ever since she sought some peace at an eco-village near Portland after the 2007 movie Juno became a box-office hit.

“Compost is amazing and I think, pretty beautiful, actually,” she told Jay Leno this week. “Urine is an incredible nitrogen source for plants. When the compost is done well, it shouldn’t smell at all.

Page spent a month at Lost Valley Educational Center for Sustainable Communities in Dexter, Ore.

“People kind of make fun of me, and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, sticking it in the ocean makes a lot more sense.’”

Her mother, Martha Philpotts, says her daughter didn’t learn it growing up in Halifax. “It’s not done in our home,” she said.

Aversion is a typical reaction, say those who have embraced the practice.

Article Continued Below

Finnish researcher Helvi Heinonen-Tanski co-authored a study on the subject published in the February issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. She and colleague Surendra Pradhan used urine from specialized toilets in Finland to grow a plot of beets.

The resulting beets were 10 to 27 per cent larger than those grown with mineral fertilizer. Chemical analysis determined all had comparable nutrient contents and, according to a blindfolded panel, their taste was indistinguishable.

Heinonen-Tanski says using human urine as fertilizer could reduce the pollution of drinking water and increase food yields at little cost. It is becoming more common at summer cottages in Finland, and she suggests Canadian rural areas without waste water treatments plants should do it.

Gardeners should use it only on soil, not the plants themselves, and stop applying urine one month before harvesting, says Pradhan.

Jim Chan, manager of healthy environments for Public Health Toronto, cautions residents against using human urine as fertilizer.

He says pathogens that transmit typhoid fever or E. coli can be present in the urine of an infected person and if used directly on plants as a fertilizer, there is a risk of cross-contamination and disease transmission.

Any handling of human waste — storing urine in the house or lugging it from the bathroom to the outdoor compost can be dangerous.

Chan says composting it may be okay if you live on a farm, but the smell could be a nuisance to neighbours in a dense urban setting. It could attract flies and animal pests, especially on hot and humid days.

“In an urban environment where you’re about 15 feet away from your neighbour’s backyard, imagine if everybody started composting human waste in the backyard?”

Chan believes it is prohibited by bylaws governing waste disposal, including pathological waste.

More from The Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com